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Confidental...
“I can pay you in Alliance credits or the Captain will pay you less in coin. He does not know who I am before we met.” She moved away from his ear and pleaded with her eyes as only she could. Then she opened her mouth to his inspection as tears slowly ran down her cheek. From where Dorian stood, this wasn’t an issue. Most of his trade had been plied upon patients who withheld ident for any number of reasons, none of them his business. Considering the fact that the man he’d labelled “captain” and his nervous punk associate weren’t in a mood for introductions either, this encounter was rapidly filing itself under the heading “business as usual.” The penlight flickered across the jagged landscape of the girl’s mouth. “Hmmm,” he said quietly. “Blunt force trauma...three teeth broken on the mandible...I’d crown those,” he muttered. When the tiny beam touched the roof of her mouth, he fought the urge to draw a breath. “Maxillary damage about the root line...several lacerations of the gum...some teeth extirpated, root and all. Looks like a total of four on the upper. Ma’am, you took quite a blow,” he said gently. He pulled back, curious as to what the swelling of her jawline might tell. An old, hot anger simmered low in him as he searched the mottling skin for evidence of knuckles that might’ve performed this work. Finding none, Dorian resumed his visual examination. “Some discoloration there,” he noted of a few markings which peeked out slightly from behind her lower lip. Something about those...familiar. And, judging by the look in her eyes, something she’d prefer he didn’t blurt out in the presence of her companions. Dorian cut the light. “Ma’am,” he said quietly, “the teeth on your jaw are an easy repair. It’s the uppers,” he said with a gesture to his own cheek, “that are the most serious issue. I suspect you’ve also got some fracturing up there as well, but I won’t be certain until we take a bone-wave.” A woman had detached herself from the patrons at the bar. She was a handsome creature, a bit taller than he, but then again, who wasn’t? Though she pretended to focus upon her drink when not warding off one drunken proposition or the next, he didn’t need a reader’s help to recognize a keen level of interest. None of this crew seemed at all stirred about her presence, so she must be familiar. “Oliver,” Adler called out. Once the barkeep had joined them, he asked, “what’s the finest bottle you have?” “That’s Reunification Small Batch.” “Perhaps not,” Dorian said. “I need something smooth and potent that won’t burn like fire in her mouth.” “Well,” Oliver wiped his hands on a towel as he spoke. “I got some Mudder’s Milk.” “Perfect. Qing qu chulai, hao ma?” As the barman hustled away, Dorian returned to his patient. “I’m giving you this for the pain,” he offered. “Don’t swallow it. Just hold it in your mouth and tilt your head so that your teeth are soaking in it. It’ll keep things tolerable til we can do the procedure.” He lifted his head. “Captain,” Dorian said, “does your medbay have a bone-wave scanner?”